Ayu After: Towards a New Beginning
by Hagetaka
Summary: She who lay dreaming for so many years has finally opened her eyes. The road to recovery is long; at times overwhelming. At the same time as the body recovers, there are new relationships to be forged after laying dormant for the better part of a decade. In what manner will Ayu and Yuuichi overcome these trials? Now that the dream is over, in what direction will life progress?
1. Kanon at the End of a Dream

_A Dream..._

_I'm having a dream that I can't wake up from..._

_A dream of many flavours..._

_A dream of sadness. A dream of happiness... of screams of laughter and screams of horror..._

_A dream of romance..._

_Slowly, gently, the dream begins to fade._

_Is my dream... over?_

_Am I awake?_

* * *

Brightness. Vivid light shone across my eyelids. A warm light... sunlight? The air was filled with the faint fragrance of flowers; The smell of the outdoors. I opened my eyes.

_My eyes are open._

Not outside. A white ceiling lies above me, blocking the sky from my view. Sunlight streams in the window to my right, gently warming my face. I look outside. No... I can't look outside. I want to look outside, but my body won't let me. My body won't move. Slightly... I can turn my head slightly. Just a little bit; to face the sunlight. Moving my head beyond that is impossible. Moving any other part of my body is impossible. Still, I can face the sunlight. I can open my eyes.

_I want to go outside._

I can't do anything. Even turning my head is difficult, now. My eyes are no longer open. Just for a moment, though, they were. I want more, but this is enough; as sounds resonate through my white-ceilinged room, I allow the dream to take me back.

* * *

Brightness again. Not the sunlight; the artificial feel of electric lighting. My open eyes see a field of black through the window. My open eyes.

_It wasn't a dream. It's not a dream._

The sound of voices. Indistinct; there might only be one voice. Who are they talking to. I am being talked to. A woman sits in a chair beside my bed; I know this because I can turn my head. The woman's hair is black, her uniform white. Likely in her mid-twenties, at least twice my age. Probably not three times that, though. She's pretty; maybe I'll be like her someday. Probably not.

More from the voice. The woman's voice. I don't understand. My ears won't understand. I understand a single word.

_Ayu_.

My name. Ayu. Tsukimiya Ayu. Family name with the kanji for "Moon" and "Palace". Given name written in hiragana.

I try saying my name. I can't say my name. My own name. Tsukimiya Ayu. I can't tell this woman my name. She knows my name. She knows, but if she didn't, I couldn't tell her. This woman; Who is this woman? Why does she know my name, if I can't have told her myself. Why can't I say my name?

Why is dreaming the only thing I can do?

* * *

Brightness yet again. Not the electric light again, but neither is it sunlight. No... sunlight, but not on my face this time. The light from outside, but not directly. Indirect light. Ambient light? Did I learn this in school, once?

A woman sits beside me. The same woman as before. A different woman from before? A similar-looking woman to the one from before; she might be the same. She was already here when my eyes opened. Waiting? She doesn't know that I'm awake. I want to tell her that I'm awake. I can tell her. I will tell her.

Unpronounceable. No, it must be pronounceable. I said it, thus it is pronounceable. Unwritable, though; and not easily pronounced intentionally. It wasn't a word, at least not in Japanese.

_I said something_.

The woman knows I'm awake. Her voice again; I can recognize my name in her speech. I can recognize more than my name.

"Ayu-chan? Can you hear my voice, Ayu-chan?"

I know those words. I know the meaning of those words. I say yes. I can't say yes; the word that comes out of my mouth means nothing yet again. I want to say yes.

"If you can hear this, blink twice. Can you understand me, Ayu-chan?"

Blink. I don't want to blink. Dreaming is the only thing I can do; if I close my eyes, I may start to do it again. I don't want to dream again. I want to talk to the woman.

I want to talk. I blink twice. My eyes are still open. I'm still awake.

"Ayu-chan, I want you to see if you can move your body. Can you do this for me? Blink twice if you understand me."

Blink twice. I don't want to see if I can move my body. I want to move my body. I'm afraid that I won't be able to move my body. I'm afraid, but I can't be afraid. I have to try.

"Can you move your fingers?" I cannot. I want to cry.

"Alright, how about wiggling your toes for me?" I cannot.

I can move my neck. My mouth moves, though the sounds it makes are meaningless. I cannot wiggle my ears, but I never could to begin with. Couldn't I? I think I couldn't.

"Ayu-chan, that's enough for today. Would you like me to stay with you longer?" I blink twice. I don't feel like dreaming yet. I don't want to be alone. This woman, who I don't know... even she can keep me from being alone. As I listen to her gentle words, my eyes close.

* * *

My eyes are open again. The sun is shining on my face again, through the window. Is it morning or evening? It doesn't matter; I can't move from this bed. I want to be able to know, though.

The woman isn't here this time. I'm alone. I don't want to be alone. I call out to somebody. Anybody. My words aren't words. Time passes. My words have changed. The gentle scent of flowers fills the room. Who brings me flowers? The woman I don't know? Even she isn't with me now. I want to cry.

Time passes. I hear sounds; footsteps, and a door opening. The woman enters the room. My ears are good enough now that I can tell there are more than just her footsteps. She's not alone. My head won't turn far enough, so I can't see who it is.

"Ayu-chan, can you still understand me?" I blink twice. She continues her address. "I've brought somebody to meet you, Ayu-chan. Do you remember this person?"

He steps forward. A man, older than me. Much older. His face is worn, his hair graying. It might be more accurate to say that it's already gray. His eyes speak of a great burden, of sorrow. He's crying. He's smiling, though. Tears of sadness, but at the same time tears of happiness. He's happy that something happened. He's happy to see me.

The man is at my side. His hands grasp mine. I've never seen this man so happy before. I've seen this man before. I know this man. I want to call out to him. My voice won't call out to him.

"Ayu-chan, do you recognize this person?" I blink twice. He looks different from before, but I know this person. I definitely know this person. This very important person. This person to whom I should be able to call out to.

_Dad._

I want to say it. I want to call out to him. I force my voice to call out to him. I am betrayed by my voice. Even so, Dad looks at me. He's openly weeping.

_It's okay, Dad. I'm here._

Time passes. There's another person who came in the room with Dad and the women, but they say nothing. Nobody says anything. I want to say something, but I cannot. Dad won't let go of my hands. I don't want him to let go.

Time passes. Somebody speaks up. A man speaks up. Not my dad; this is the third person who came into the room. He steps next to Dad, allowing me to get a look at him. White coat. He's older than Dad, but he looks younger. Dad looks much too old for his age.

"Ayu?" The man wants my attention. "I am Dr. Itou Hirosuke. You're currently at a hospital; do you remember why this is?"

Hospital? I move my head from side to side.

"Ah... I see. You were injured falling from a tree. It was a very bad fall, and in an out of the way location. At this point, it's safe to say that your life is no longer in danger, but it may be many more years before you make a full recovery, if ever. I have high hopes, though, given the amount of progress that you've made in just two days since you first opened your eyes."

Years until I recover? Will I become an adult before I can leave this bed? At the very least, I won't be a child anymore. Many years... no, he said many _more_ years. Dad didn't look this old when last I saw him; how old is he now?

How old am I?

* * *

The sunlight is on my face again. The woman from before, a nurse, tells me that that means that it's late afternoon. I still can't tell the passage of days; my cycle of waking from and returning to sleep happens too randomly. It must have been some time, though, because I'm a little better. Yesterday, Dr. Itou told me that I managed to move my fingers and toes. I still can't talk.

The door opens and the nurse walks to my side. Her name is Chihiro. She's nice; since she can't spend long periods of time with me due to her other patients, Chihiro comes to my room every day after she finishes work. She sits by my side in case I wake up. At least once, I've spent time with her while the sunlight wasn't on my face. I think she sometimes comes in early in the morning to sit by me, as well. I want to tell her not to trouble herself, but I can't. I need to learn how to talk.

I don't think this will help to motivate me, though. I like it when Chihiro sits with me.

"How are you today, Ayu-chan?" I'm fine. I don't need to blink to answer anymore, since I learned how to nod my head. "We've got a visitor for you today. He hasn't been able to come since you opened your eyes, but before then he was here almost every day!"

Dad? No, she wouldn't introduce Dad to me. Who is this? I don't know any _oniisan_s like this. I'm older than I used to be, though... he might only be a few years older than me. How long was I asleep?

"Ayu?" The _oniisan_ approached me. He's trembling. Have I met this person before?

"Do you remember me, Ayu?" I don't remember you. No, I don't recognize you. I don't know whether or not I remember you.

"Ayu... it's me. Aizawa Yuuichi."


	2. Graduation: New Chapter in Life

_Dream..._

_I'm having a familiar Dream..._

_A Dream where I'm beside the girl I love..._

_A Dream where I promise to love her, always..._

_The familiar Dream ends. I'm still beside her._

_Why doesn't she respond?_

_I wish for things to return to the way they were, but I cannot..._

_It's time to stop dreaming_

* * *

Brightness. The afternoon sun shone down on my back, warming my neck. The school grounds were filled with suit- and kimono-clad students, milling about as they bade farewell to their peers of the past three years. A quick scan of the crowds revealed the locations of several of my closest friends.

Minase Nayuki, my space-cadet of a cousin, was perhaps the most visible graduate at the event. More accurately, she was the easiest to locate: It was hard to miss the gaggle of underclassman girls and admiring classmates. Maintaining a line-of-sight connection with her person proved to be a much more daunting task as a result of the aforementioned crowd, but the few semi-prolonged glimpses of her that I was able to attain showed her to be quite cheerful in the midst of her social peers. In what I had deemed to be nothing short of a miracle but Nayuki referred to as an obvious occurrence, she had _not_ fallen asleep while accepting her graduation certificate, although I wonder if I might have been able to view her dozing in her seat had I looked back during the other portions of the ceremony. Well, since she she somehow managed to wrack her brain for three years and attained better marks in school than I, despite my superior intellect and ability to stay awake during class, I suppose she has earned herself a bit of a nap.

Problematically, Nayuki's popularity during her high school years had become a bit of a misfortune for me: Finding an opportunity for approaching her at the moment was about as likely a possibility as my acquaintances suddenly hearing me declare that I had fallen in love with the snow and cold weather of this town, and that I would be subsequently relocating my person to Siberia so that I might experience more of it. Normally, I wouldn't consider the inability to find my cousin a significant problem: We do live in the same house, after all. It would be but a simple matter to congratulate her on her graduation once we had reached home, or on the walk back that we would likely be taking together. Having known her for several years, including the immediately preceding year when we had lived in closest proximity, I knew that this would not fly with her, and that she would find disappointment in my failure to congratulate her on accomplishing what every other student in the school had also managed to accomplish. This failure would be accompanied by Nayuki pouting like a girl half her age, and my aunt Akiko would inform us not to fight, followed immediately by the idea that the graduation of her daughter and nephew would be the perfect cause for a celebration in which we would all eat her favorite jam. Things would progress downhill from there.

Despite the dire consequences of not talking to my cousin, I felt that there was really no way in which this particular flag could be triggered. It would seem that the two of us would be taking a detour through the shopping district on the way home, to congratulate Nayuki in a celebration between the two of us that would most surely involve me purchasing copious amounts of strawberries for her consumption. Luckily, I had recently attained a source of income, so there was a good chance that I could handle the necessary transactions. Probably.

Conspicuously absent from the throng of people around Nayuki was her best friend, Misaka Kaori. I suppose that, if I were to really think about it, Kaori is quite popular but not the type one would see at the center of a mass of people. It was likely that Kaori had chosen to retire to some less-crowded place, such as the school courtyard. The fact that I had seen Kaori's sister in the group of non-graduates who had come to observe the ceremony gave additional credence to the idea of her being in a less-packed location. As Kaori would be leaving to attend University in Tokyo, locating her before she left the premises would have to be a priority. One could say that it was the _only_ priority, as our fellow classmate and friend-by-pity, Kitagawa Jun, had not managed to graduate...

"Who didn't manage to graduate, exactly?"

"I turned to find Kitagawa standing beside me. Though not part of the ceremony, he had still arrived dressed in a suit, as though the embarrassment of attending the graduation for his own year dressed in his uniform like an underclassman was too much to bear..."

"Don't flunk me out of class so easily! My marks were only just below yours."

"Ah, but I'm surprised that you caught that remark..."

"Anybody would notice when you suddenly start narrating falsely about their grades. And why'd you start there? Narrate the whole thing next time!"

_Wait, you knew that there was more?_

"Well, I'll forgive you," Kitagawa said. "Now, how about we go to the courtyard? Shiori-chan'll want to congratulate you, which means Kaori'll be free to talk to me..."

Temporarily setting aside Kitagawa's moderately deceitful intentions to open up an opportunity for him to talk to Kaori, I had also concluded that there was not much that could be achieved in this place. Together the two of us made our way around the school, exchanging the occasional greeting and congratulations will those people whom we held acquaintance.

* * *

"Oi! Kaori!"

Of the two girls who had been strolling through the otherwise abandoned courtyard, the elder one with elegantly done-up hair did not turn in response to Kitagawa's call. In fact, one might be tempted to say that, upon hearing his voice call out to the pair, she seemed to turn in such a manner that she was now facing directly from us. Gently pulling on the arm of her companion, she attempted to guide their walk away from our location. The other girl, who was wearing nothing more formal than a school uniform, resisted the attempt at being led away and turned to face us. About to yell out a response to Kitagawa, something must of caught her eye, for the expression on her face took less than a second to morph from "joyous" to "_very_ joyous".

"Yuuichi-san!" Though one might gather from her expression and voice that she would have broken away from her companion in a full run in order to greet me, Misaka Shiori retained enough propriety to not abandon her sister on her graduation day. Instead, she gently pulled at Kaori's arm in an attempt to convince her sister to bring our two parties together. If Kaori had heard Kitagawa's earlier hail and deliberately ignored it, Shiori showed no signs of awareness to this fact; she seemed to honestly believe that Kaori had somehow failed to hear my loudmouthed companion.

Despite the awareness on both my and Kaori's parts regarding Kitagawa's blatant intent to use this meeting for a private conversation with Kaori, Shiori either did not know about this or did not care to let it affect her decisions. As such, she addressed me directly, leaving Kitagawa and Kaori on their own. Just as he had planned.

"Congratulations, Yuuichi-san" A smile. The most genuine and cheerful smile that I'd ever seen from this girl. Apparently, the passage of her elder sister and something-like-an-elder-brother was an event justifying feelings of jubilation surpassing ones own recovery from life-threatening illness.

"Thank you," I replied. There was no real reason for our group to split into two other than what Kitagawa wanted, so I figured that we may as well include those two as well. "Congratulations, Kaori"

"Congratulations, Aizawa-kun," she said. "Nayuki's not with you?"

"She's with the track team. And her other friends. And about half the school, actually."

"Make sure you talk to her before leaving," Kaori warned. "It might look tough, but she'll be even more impressed if you fight through a crowd of people to congratulate her."

"I'm not sure the injury is worth that much additional admiration from her."

"Don't be so quick to devalue the worth of her feelings," Kaori said. She fell into a ponderous silence for a few seconds before continuing. "I'd imagine that with the additional strengthening to your relationship from this action, Nayuki will experience an unprecedented jump in happiness. Her mood might improve to the point of allowing for a 70% drop in your Strawberry Sundae budget for the next year."

"That much, huh?"

"When do you leave for university, Kitagawa-kun?" Polite as ever, Shiori didn't even attempt to imply that Kitagawa wouldn't graduate. Clearly, there was still more for her to learn from me.

"Hm? I've got a week or so before then."

"Ah, around the same time as _onee-chan_, then."

"You're both leaving around the same time?" I asked. "How about we throw a going-away party sometime next week for everybody?"

"Next week, huh?" Kaori asked. "We could go out this afternoon to celebrate... ah, but aren't Kawasumi-senpai and Kurata-senpai are leaving around the same time as us, too? Are they still around here?"

"I saw Sayuri and Mai right after the ceremony ended," I said. "They were going to leave right after that, so they're probably already gone."

"Hmm... Well, let's see if we can get together with them sometime next week. We could still do something small today, though. How about stopping at Hyakkaya whenever Nayuki's free?"

"That'll work. I'll likely owe her apology sundaes anyway..."

"Oh no you don't," Kaori declared. She grabbed me by the arm and began to drag me back toward the front gate. Kitagawa assisted from the other side. "No writing this off as an inevitability; you're going to at least make an attempt at talking to Nayuki before everybody disperses."


	3. A Cause for Celebration

"Congratulations!"

The joyful cry reverberated throughout the crowded cafe. Joining together with the voices of my companions was a chorus, originating from the many students of our year who had likewise decided to see off their peers at the establishment that so many had used to socialize during the past three years. While it had perhaps not reached the point where one would describe the interior of the cafe as "overcrowded" or "packed", the word "filled" was becoming an increasingly appropriate adjective. The scene was in many ways reminiscent of the one that had taken place in the same location slightly more than a year prior.

As the long table towards the back of the room had already been given to a different group of students, our party had been seated at one of the smaller tables; as we numbered only five, this was an acceptable arrangement. The space to my left was occupied by my cousin. As I had failed to contact her within what were considered the acceptable bounds by her, the space in front of her was occupied by a rather large strawberry sundae, which seemed to be occupying her attention quite thoroughly. This situation had initially been viewed with mild distress on the part of Kaori who, sandwiched between Nayuki and Kitagawa, had been attempting to pull her friend's attention away from the desert in an attempt to not have to converse with Kitagawa alone. She had recently seemed to have given up on that effort, as she and Kitagawa were now engaged in idle chatter.

"Have you been able to meet attendance requirements this year, Shiori?" For the past few minutes, I had been conversing with the youngest member of our party, the only one of us who would still be attending high school when the next term began in a few weeks. Though only younger than the rest by one year, Shiori's education had been delayed an additional year as a result of health problems.

"Shiori's attendance was satisfactory," she answered. "I've only had to miss a couple of days each month."

"That's good." In a normal student, such an attendance record would be cause for concern. Coming from the girl who had only been present for a few dozen days the prior year, it was the sign of a truly miraculous improvement in health. "You'd better keep up the good record, or people might start to see you as a delinquent."

"Hey, stop applying weird labels to my sister!" It seemed that Kaori had been half-listening to our conversation from across the table. "Besides, if there'd be any place that she picked up delinquent behavior from, It'd be you."

"Oh? Worried that your sister will become my protege in your absence? Fear not, Kaori! By the time you have your first chance to return home, Shiori will have been modeled into a spitting image of myself!"

"Shiori, stay away from him." Kaori thought about the issue for a moment longer. "Actually, that's not enough. Come with me to Tokyo."

"Can't turn her into my successor, eh? Well then..." I stood from my chair, bowing flourishingly towards Shiori. "How about as my girlfriend?"

"Permission denied. You wouldn't seriously do it, anyway," she said, deadpan. "If you were, I'm sure a certain someone would be _very_ interested in hearing about it."

"Not gullible enough for your own good, Kaori." I returned to my seat.

"Isn't that for _your_ good, Yuuichi?" Apparently Nayuki had eaten enough sundae that she was now prepared to join the conversation.

"Ah, it may have been something like that..."

"Continuing from earlier," Kitagawa interjected, "How is Ayu-chan doing, anyhow?"

At this shift in topic, the faces of the Misaka sisters took on serious casts, contrasting with their previously cheerful demeanor. Elsewhere in the cafe, the other students from our school carried on with their celebration; it was only at our table that the mood had turned sombre. News of any kind regarding my friend from childhood had been almost nonexistent in the past year. While the situation certainly had a silver lining in that no news meant that her condition was not worsening, it had been harder to see things in such a positive light as time passed. Indeed, one might be tempted to give up hope from the lack of recovery in only the one year that this group had known of Tsukimiya Ayu's condition, even without considering the seven years she'd been in such a state before they'd learned about her.

In sharp contrast to the solemn atmosphere that had befallen the other three members of our group, Nayuki cheerfully consumed another spoonful of her sundae. To an outside observer, it may have seemed as though she were oblivious to the mood; While I certainly wouldn't want to discourage any from thinking that my cousin could be quite inattentive at times, in this case it was mostly due to the fact that she had been made party to information that the others didn't yet possess.

"She's doing quite well," I said. "Two weeks ago, she woke up for the first time. She's been awake for a few hours every couple of days since then."

It was a few seconds before the news registered with them, but it was a very drastic change when it did. What had just previously been the gloomiest party in the room transitioned rapidly into the most jubilant. Kitagawa practically leapt into the air upon hearing this new information, while Shiori resorted to embracing my arm with a deathgrip one wouldn't suspect the frail-looking girl to be capable of. Even Kaori who had never spoken with Ayu directly and wasn't usually one to perform strong displays of emotion in public was smiling to an extent that I hadn't seen in over a year.

"Eh! Ayu-chan's recovered!?" Kitagawa said.

"Aizawa-kun, why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"This means she's going to be okay, right, Yuuichi-san?"

I found myself besieged by a barrage of questions, all demanding to be answered first. Nayuki, who had of course already heard this news, unhelpfully continued to eat her ice cream. I could have sworn that the sight of me attempting to hold off enough questions to begin answering them caused her to smile.

"I only learned this myself recently," I said, having finally calmed down the others. "I'm not the first person to be contacted when something happens, so I had to wait to hear it through other sources."

"Is she doing fine right now?" Despite having met Ayu on only a few occasions, Shiori was quite enthusiastic in her search for additional good news.

"I don't really know, for sure."

"Has she not been awake during any of your visits?"

"I've been busy after school during the past month. Now that school's over, I'll have time to visit regularly again, but since she started waking up I've only been able to visit this past Sunday, and she wasn't awake then."

"You haven't had the chance to talk to her yet!?" Kitagawa seemed utterly appalled that things had turned out this way. "How about we all go for a visit this afternoon?"

Shiori seemed rather pleased at Kitagawa's suggestion, but Kaori merely shook her head. "I'll pass on this one. If she's just woken up recently, it might be a bad idea to overwhelm her with visitors."

"If _onee-chan_'s not going, then I'll stay out of this one as well," Shiori said. "Besides, I'm not going away to college, so I can visit Ayu-chan whenever I want."

"Is that so..." Kitagawa looked around at the rest of the group sheepishly. "Well, I don't really know Ayu-chan that well, so I'll wait a bit longer before visiting. Keep me posted, Aizawa."

Having exhausted the possibilities of that particular discussion topic, the conversation drifted back towards peoples recent lives and their plans for the future. Even so, for as long as our group remained in the cafe, there was an unmistakeable lightness to the conversation, as though nothing discussed could be of as much importance as what had come earlier.

* * *

The sun was not quite setting as we left Hyakkaya. While one would normally say that the members of our group each went their separate ways, such a phrase seemed oddly inappropriate in this situation: we headed out with Nayuki and I in one group and the Misakas in another as usual, but quite unusually, Kitagawa left with the two sister, chatting lightly with Kaori as they passed through the shopping district.

"Yuuichi." My cousin was waiting impatiently for me to go with her.

"Let's go home, shall we?" At my suggestion, Nayuki shook her head.

"Yuuichi, shouldn't we visit Ayu-chan? We can still make it in time for visiting hours, if we hurry."

"She probably won't be awake."

"What if she is, though?"

There was no argument that I could offer against that supposition. It wasn't even that I didn't want to see Ayu; rather, there was nothing in the world that would please me more than to see Ayu awake after so many years. I should have been running down the street with a speed that even Nayuki would have trouble keeping up with.

_I was afraid._

For months, I had been caught up in a routine. Immediately after school, I would head to the hospital and sit next to Ayu's bed until visiting hours were over. There was never any change in her condition, but I would nonetheless spend hours of each day talking to her in hopes that she would hear my voice. A month ago, though, I'd stopped visiting her to begin employment.

Now, when I thought of visiting again, I was afraid to see her the same way. Her recent awakening should have made me ecstatic that she might be awake one day when I was there. I should have been looking forward to seeing her every day. Instead, I was looking for an excuse not to visit, so I wouldn't feel disappointed should there be no change in Ayu's condition during my visitation.

"Yuuichi." Nayuki reached forth and took my hand in hers. "Let's go see her together, Yuuichi."

* * *

The corridors were just as always: plain, clean, and lit with florescent lighting. I had never really enjoyed hospitals as a child, and one would think that my opinion of them would not have softened with the events of last year, in which roughly half of my close acquaintances had been hospitalized with conditions of varying severity. In truth, during that month my desire to spend time in the quite-necessary buildings had dropped severely, but that month was long-since over. Over the past year, likely as a result of my regular visitations with Ayu, I'd found a certain degree of solace in the building that I'd not thought possible.

When I'd been at the hospital in the past, I'd usually been permitted to visit Ayu's room unescorted, provided that I signed in at the front desk and was only present during the scheduled visiting hours. On this occasion, likely as a result of her recent awakening, or even more so due to the possibility that she might be awake right now, we were accompanied to the room by one of the nurses. She was one whom I'd met and spoken lightly with several times over the past year, possibly more than any of the other hospital staff aside from Ayu's main doctor. It seemed as though she was serving as Ayu's primary caretaker.

Following the nurse's instructions, we stopped outside the door while she went in alone. From within the room, I heard her muffled voice.

She was talking to Ayu.

_Does that mean Ayu can hear her?_

The nurse returned to the door, beckoning us in. I turned to Nayuki, who merely shook her head.

"You should see her first, Yuuichi."

Walking towards the room, I stopped just before the doorframe. Had it not been for Nayuki's gentle push against my back, I might never have found the courage to enter of my own accord. I stumbled slightly, catching myself before falling to the floor.

My throat was dry. My hands were shaking. After stumbling, my eyes were directed at the floor in front of me; I was scared to raise them to look at the bed against the far wall.

"Ayu?"

Her body was laying in bed, her head resting on a pillow and her arms at her side. In her left hand rested a doll, battered and patched up but still recognizably depicting a cheerful angel. Her chest rose and fell with each breath: slowly, as though in deep sleep. She was almost exactly as she had been on every past occasion that I had visited her. With one exception, everything about her seemed to indicate that she was deep in slumber. One exception...

_Her eyes were open._

She didn't follow my motions as I staggered into the room. With the way her head was turned only slightly to the side on her pillow, it was likely that she lacked the strength to do so. Still, her eyes were unmistakeably open.

Another step forward. My hands were trembling. I was surprised that my legs were steady enough to support me. In that moment, I almost wished that I had been mistaken; that Ayu was asleep after all, that she hadn't seen how weak I was. Almost.

"Do you remember me, Ayu?"

Another step forward. I wanted to hear her voice. The voice with which she had always called out to me. The voice she had used to scold me. That voice that had laughed, cried, screamed, and consoled. The voice which I hadn't heard in a year. The voice that continued to remain silent.

Her head remained steady; her mouth soundless. I searched her eyes desperately, trying to find any hint of recognition within. I found nothing. I despaired.

"Ayu... it's me. Aizawa Yuuichi." My voice was quavering. I wanted to run away. I couldn't run. I needed to stay strong in front of Ayu. To stay strong _for _Ayu.

Another step forward; I reached her bed. My trembling hand reached out, brushing against her motionless cheek. She blinked upon feeling the stimulus. Her jaw weakly moved several times, causing her lips to part. No sound came out.

_You're late, Yuuichi-kun_.

Can't you say that for me, Ayu?

"Do you know who I am?" She continued to stare blankly at me. Her mouth was no longer moving. Slight motion: her head was moving. The soft skin on her cheek brushed against my shaking hands.

She was nodding her head.

I fell to my knees. I don't think I could have remained standing if I wanted to; all of the strength I had previously been able to muster was gone from my body. Kneeling by her side, I lay my head against her shoulder.

"Ayu"

I called out her name. I said it again and again, so much that I wonder how my voice didn't go hoarse. All this time, I'd waited for her to awaken. Waited for the day when we could speak to each other once more. That day may not have yet come, but from the moment I saw Ayu's head nod in recognition, I was no longer afraid. I knew that the day _will_ come.

Ayu regarded me silently. There was an ever-increasing amount of moisture in her eyes; she was crying. Several spots of water on the shoulder of her white hospital gown were testament to the fact that I too was crying.

_This isn't a dream, right? Is the dream really over?_

* * *

It was late in the afternoon. The sun shone through the open window by the bedside, illuminating Ayu's face. I wonder how long the two of us had spent laying there, exchanging no words that held any meaning, merely content with the fact that we were both _there_.

Quite some time had passed since the nurse had returned to her duties elsewhere. Nayuki had joined us in the room, occupying a chair set against the far wall. She had said nothing so far, leaving Ayu and I alone, but I could see that her eyes were definitely red. She, too, had been affected by the long-awaited reunion. I beckoned for her to come closer.

"Ayu, there's someone else here to visit you." I shifted to the side in order to allow Nayuki to step into Ayu's field of view. "Do you remember this person?"

Ayu remained motionless for a few seconds. Finally, she shook her head from side to side.

"This is Minase Nayuki, my cousin. Do you remember meeting her?" I prodded her with additional information, hoping to jog her memory. After a few seconds of staring blankly, Ayu responded with another head-shake.

"You don't remember her..." This turn of events had left me with a deep sense of dread regarding Ayu's recovery. For weeks, she and Nayuki had lived in the same house; it did not bode well for the state of her mind if she couldn't remember even one instance of the two being together.

"I'm glad to meet you, Ayu-chan." Nayuki reached out with her hand, caressing Ayu's cheek before resting it firmly on her shoulder. "Is it okay for me to call you that?" A split second delay, then Ayu nodded affirmatively.

"I'm going to be going away soon, Ayu-chan, but I want to visit you with Yuuichi whenever he's around. Are you okay with that?"

Another affirmative. Nayuki caressed Ayu's face once more.

"I look forward to being friends with you, Ayu-chan." Ayu's response to this statement, as before, was to nod in agreement. It was with that motion that the friendship between those two, something that had once seemed close enough that they could have been mistaken for sisters, was now reverted to a new beginning.


	4. Lost Years

_A Dream..._

_I was having a dream..._

_A dream shared between many..._

_Between friends... between relatives..._

_between lovers..._

_That dream is over._

_The details of the dream fade from memory..._

_What was I dreaming about?_

* * *

The boy sat in a chair by my bedside.

Perhaps that wasn't quite right. He was certainly a "boy" in the sense of being male, but if one were speaking in regard to his age there could be a good case made against the use of that word; rather, in this situation the word "Man" might have been more appropriate. Not a fully-grown man, but one who was very close to it. Certainly one who had grown enough that he'd be treated as an adult in many respects.

_So this is what Yuuichi-kun will grow up to look like?_

No, that wasn't quite right either. Yuuichi-kun already looked like that. It wasn't a matter of what he would look like when he grew up, because he had already done so. Even though it had been only a few weeks ago that we had been playing together... another thing that wasn't right. For me, it had been a few weeks. Only for me. Nobody else saw it in that timeframe.

Years. For Aizawa Yuuichi to change from the boy my age who had played with me in the forest to the young man who cried by my bedside, years would have to be the unit of measure that everybody used when speaking of my time in the hospital. The doctors and nurses had looked after me for years. My friends hadn't spoken with me in years. My father had worried about his only child for years. Yuuichi-kun had cried by my side for years.

This person, the woman who had come with Yuuichi-kun; had it been years for her, as well? He had asked if I could remember her. As far as I knew, I had never met such a person before the accident. Did that mean that she had visited while I was asleep? Had she spoken to me during an earlier occasion where I had awoken, only for me to have forgotten the encounter? Though she had told me she wanted to be friends, she was seated in a chair behind Yuuichi-kun. Had she met me only recently, leading her to defer to Yuuichi-kun who had known me for days before the accident? Politeness from not having as long of an acquaintance with me seemed to be the only reasonable explanation for her to sit quietly behind her companion; it was preposterous to think that such a mature-looking woman would remain silent because of shyness. Yuuichi-kun had introduced her as his cousin. Could this be one of the relatives he had been staying with when we first met? I was incredibly jealous. How dare Yuuichi-kun have reason to spend school breaks staying with such a pretty relative, when I only ever remained at home with my parents.

"Today was our graduation, Ayu. Nayuki, Kaori, Kitagawa, and I all went to Hyakkaya to celebrate. Shiori was there, too. Do you remember any of them?" None of those people's names seemed familiar, so I shook my head.

Come to think of it, Yuuichi-kun and his cousin were dressed incredibly formally. They must have come from the ceremony without stopping by their homes first. Homes... home? When we'd known each other before, Yuuichi-kun had been staying with his relatives because it was winter break. For him to have his graduation in this city... had he moved here with his family? Was he just here to attend high school, possibly staying with his relatives again?

The two of us had once talked about how fun it would have been if we could have attended school together instead of only seeing each other during the breaks. If I hadn't lost those years of my life, would that childhood dream of ours have become a reality?

"Nayuki, Kaori, and Kitagawa all begin university next week. I'm putting it off at least until next year. For the time being, I'm working at a restaurant in the shopping district. I'll still be in this town, so I can visit you every day. Is that okay?"

I nodded my head. It may have been a foolish wish to think that Yuuichi-kun would be there every time I opened my eyes, but even without such a miracle, even for it to happen only some of the time would be a pleasant thing to look forward to.

* * *

In what seemed to be nearly no time at all, the visiting hours for the hospital were over, and Yuuichi-kun and his cousin left my room reluctantly. Though his face was still slightly wet with the tears from earlier, he was smiling clearly as he left. Before going, he promised that he would return the following day.

For a while after the departure of my visitors, I stared at the door to my room as best as I was able. Against what I had hoped, but in accordance to what I had expected, nobody else entered my room. If visiting hours had just ended, Chihiro wouldn't be finished with her work for yet another hour; barring her or one of the other nurses checking up on me, it was unlikely that I'd have any other visitors until then. If it seems rather foolish for me to lay in anticipation of guests when I was expecting none, it likely was. Unfortunately, there was not much else that I could do in the situation that I was in.

_So, that's the kind of person Yuuichi-kun has grown up into._

Back when Yuuichi and I had played together, we had been in the same year of school. For him to have just experienced his graduation would mean that I had slept through nine birthdays. Try as I might, I couldn't imagine what my eighteen-year-old self might look like right now. I just couldn't see myself looking so different from when I last knew what I looked like. I certainly couldn't see myself having become as mature-looking as Yuuichi-kun's cousin.

_Does this mean I'm not a child anymore?_

Having grown up would normally mean that one was an adult, right? Except, being grown up is achieved through the experiences one experiences while growing up. What does it mean when somebody manages to become grown up without experiencing the process of growing? Should I have been considered the child that I remembered being, or the adult that I now appeared to be?

_Someone, please tell me the answer._

* * *

"Are you awake, Ayu-chan?"

Chihiro called out to me with her gentle voice as she entered my room. She couldn't see my face with the way I was currently positioned, head turned toward the window in order to watch the setting sun. Well, to watch as best as I could when I couldn't raise my body enough to see the horizon beyond the windowsill. Mostly, I was just watching the clouds pass by, tinged slightly with the warm colours of the western sky in evening. Even without seeing the sun, it could be considered a beautiful sight.

The fact that, while I was turned this way, Chihiro couldn't see that I had been crying was just a bonus.

"You've been awake for awhile today, haven't you?"

It was certainly true. From sometime after noon until at least an hour after the end of visiting hours: it was the longest I'd been awake yet. Well, the longest stretch of time in the past few years that I'd been awake. The novelty of being able to retain consciousness for more than an hour was beginning to wear off, especially in face of the fact that I had nothing to do while awake, anyways. Most of the time, the periods of time in which I could perceive my surroundings coincided with nothing more eventful than a nurse checking in on me.

Not today, though. Today's events had been much different.

"That was a good friend of yours, right?" I nodded. Though her initial impression had come across as that of a reserve and serene nurse, I had recently begun to discover that Chihiro possessed a fervent love of conversation when she wasn't on duty. As such, she liked to hear about me when she was visiting. She would often pass the time that the two of us spent together by asking questions that I could answer with my limited ability to respond. Though one would be pressed to find a person who would consider the resulting exchanges to be a conversation in the traditional sense, Chihiro seemed quite happy with this arrangement. I certainly wasn't complaining about it; spending time conversing with someone while I was limited to only using yes-or-no responses was still much better than spending time staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Someone you knew from school?" No. I shook my head.

"From your neighborhood, then? Somebody you played with when you were younger?" I shook my head again, then changed it to a nod. Only partially correct.

"It's really nice of him to be always visiting you like this. You must have been quite close."

Our "conversation" continued afterward for another part of an hour, ending when Chihiro had to leave for the day. The remainder of our talk had little to do with Yuuichi-kun; while Chihiro likely would have loved to question me further about our past, we had reached the limit of what information I could convey in my limited state of mobility. Instead, our conversation turned to the topic of my other friends from around the same time period, ones whom I had known through school. I could not communicate their names, though as the memories of my fourth grade year were still fresh in my mind, I could easily recall them: Sakura, quiet and never far from a book; Himeko, playful and energetic; Yui, carefree until she became really engrossed in something; and Keiko, who always took everything seriously. Without being able to directly tell Chihiro of these recollections, I was limited to assuring her that I used to have lots of fun, and that we had all been friends for quite some time.

* * *

Two weeks.

The part I couldn't understand. The part I couldn't tell Chihiro; not because I didn't want to or was afraid to, but because it couldn't be expressed in terms of yes and no. Yuuichi and I had known each other for two weeks before the accident. We had spent entire days together, and Yuuichi-kun had been a friend at a time in my life when I really needed one. Even if I could have spoken, words would not have helped me to properly explain how critical his acquaintance had been for me, and how much I still owed him. That was just my side of our friendship, though.

For Yuuichi-kun, there should have been no such thing. He saved me, but there was no need for me to save him. For him, I should have just been a girl he met at a time of the year when he was away from his usual friends. A substitute friend: sincere, but temporary. That's how the situation should have been.

Eight years later, though, he was still here. After knowing me for a short time, he had been willing to wait a period of time hundreds of times larger than the duration of our initial acquaintance in order to see me again. According to Chihiro, he usually visited everyday, long after the closest of my friends had stopped visiting altogether. It made me happy. It was sweet. It was something I had no right to experience, having never done anything remotely as meaningful for the boy who continued to stay by my side.

With that thought in my head, the longest day that I'd experienced in years ended; reclaimed by the approaching darkness of deep slumber.


End file.
